The recent and allegedly new UK strain of the coronavirus, which caused the lockdown of Brisbane for 3 days when just ONE case was found, is said to be 70% more contagious than before. Except that this was based on a lie... or at least, very poor research.
A colleague of mine located the study which "found" that the new UK strain was allegedly more contagious is not even a published study, and has not even been peer-reviewed (verified and approved) by other scientists. It's not worth the paper it's printed on.
Scientific studies are not all they seem to be in the media. There are many different types of scientific studies of differing quality of evidence. Many studies are very poorly designed, make terrible assumptions or conclusions which don't match their data, or they can be completely made up or fraudulent. It happens. To make things worse, many research studies (or the scientists performing the study) are funded by the very company that sets to profit from a positive outcome, and they design the study for that particular outcome. And then the media often takes an exaggerated and sensationalist story of the study outcomes, because reporters don't know how to read the study in full or how to critically analyse it. And many people still believe what they are told in the media. This is why one week coffee is bad for you, or chocolate, or red meat, or red wine... and the next week comes out with another study showing the opposite! We've all seen this again and again!
You cannot believe the media. You need to read the real source - the study itself. Or get unbiased and independent experts to analyse the studies for you. It seems that Queensland Health and other governments and media have jumped all over the media story that the new UK strain of coronavirus being much more contagious is worthy of scaring everyone, not reading the real study, and then informing clueless politicians take this poor advice and make poorer decisions, based on a lie. Qld Health officials responsible for the recent lockdown should be sacked.
The unpublished study (Davies et al., 2020) which points to the UK strain being so dangerous found:
1. That the new strain was ESTIMATED (yes, their words) to be about 56% more transmissible (NOT 70%!), based on a MATHEMETICAL MODEL, not from real statistics
2. They were unable to find evidence that the new strain results in greater or lesser severity of disease
3. Even if the tiered restrictions in the UK were maintained, these will not bring down the rate of transmission, unless schools and universities are closed
4. The new UK strain has increased incidences despite all the lockdown measures in place (or in other words, the lockdown measures are NOT working)
5. The UK strain has multiple mutations compared to the original strain
6. The study looked at vaccine effectiveness in their modelling, and recommended more vaccinations to attempt to slow the incidence rate. But as I already wrote about recently, the 95% effectiveness of the 2 available COVID vaccines is also a lie, so this modelling cannot be believed
7. Increased transmission of the virus will increase the percentage of herd immunity. The authors then recommend increasing the vaccine coverage to increase herd immunity, but that's a faulty concept, as her immunity ONLY occurs in natural infections not from vaccinations which may only give a temporary immunity before wearing off and you are no longer immune...
Whether a virus is contagious is one thing, but whether it is deadly is another. A mathematical model used in this study cannot factor in all the variables to come up with an accurate outcome that matches reality. They admit that their results are just "estimates", yet they make major recommendations regarding closing down more services, and vaccinating more people (with unproven and experimental vaccines). The recent lockdown in Brisbane, or the tightening restrictions in the UK or other countries isn't working, and isn't justified - a different approach is needed.
Break the incidence and infection cycle - look after your immune system, so that even if you encounter any strain or mutation of this (or any other) virus, your immune system will know what to do to fight it and get rid of it. If you want more information on how to do this, see me!
Stay healthy!
References:
Davies, N.G., Barnard, R.C., Jarvis, C.I., Kucharski, A.J., Munday, J., Pearson, C.A.B., Russell, T.W., Tully, D.C., Abbott, S., Gimma, A., Waites, W., Wong, K.K.M., van Zandvoort, K., Eggo, R.M., Funk, S., Jit, M., Atkins, K.E., & W.J. Edmunds. (2020). Estimated transmissibility and severity of novel SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern 202012/01 in England. medRxiv. DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822
A colleague of mine located the study which "found" that the new UK strain was allegedly more contagious is not even a published study, and has not even been peer-reviewed (verified and approved) by other scientists. It's not worth the paper it's printed on.
Scientific studies are not all they seem to be in the media. There are many different types of scientific studies of differing quality of evidence. Many studies are very poorly designed, make terrible assumptions or conclusions which don't match their data, or they can be completely made up or fraudulent. It happens. To make things worse, many research studies (or the scientists performing the study) are funded by the very company that sets to profit from a positive outcome, and they design the study for that particular outcome. And then the media often takes an exaggerated and sensationalist story of the study outcomes, because reporters don't know how to read the study in full or how to critically analyse it. And many people still believe what they are told in the media. This is why one week coffee is bad for you, or chocolate, or red meat, or red wine... and the next week comes out with another study showing the opposite! We've all seen this again and again!
You cannot believe the media. You need to read the real source - the study itself. Or get unbiased and independent experts to analyse the studies for you. It seems that Queensland Health and other governments and media have jumped all over the media story that the new UK strain of coronavirus being much more contagious is worthy of scaring everyone, not reading the real study, and then informing clueless politicians take this poor advice and make poorer decisions, based on a lie. Qld Health officials responsible for the recent lockdown should be sacked.
The unpublished study (Davies et al., 2020) which points to the UK strain being so dangerous found:
1. That the new strain was ESTIMATED (yes, their words) to be about 56% more transmissible (NOT 70%!), based on a MATHEMETICAL MODEL, not from real statistics
2. They were unable to find evidence that the new strain results in greater or lesser severity of disease
3. Even if the tiered restrictions in the UK were maintained, these will not bring down the rate of transmission, unless schools and universities are closed
4. The new UK strain has increased incidences despite all the lockdown measures in place (or in other words, the lockdown measures are NOT working)
5. The UK strain has multiple mutations compared to the original strain
6. The study looked at vaccine effectiveness in their modelling, and recommended more vaccinations to attempt to slow the incidence rate. But as I already wrote about recently, the 95% effectiveness of the 2 available COVID vaccines is also a lie, so this modelling cannot be believed
7. Increased transmission of the virus will increase the percentage of herd immunity. The authors then recommend increasing the vaccine coverage to increase herd immunity, but that's a faulty concept, as her immunity ONLY occurs in natural infections not from vaccinations which may only give a temporary immunity before wearing off and you are no longer immune...
Whether a virus is contagious is one thing, but whether it is deadly is another. A mathematical model used in this study cannot factor in all the variables to come up with an accurate outcome that matches reality. They admit that their results are just "estimates", yet they make major recommendations regarding closing down more services, and vaccinating more people (with unproven and experimental vaccines). The recent lockdown in Brisbane, or the tightening restrictions in the UK or other countries isn't working, and isn't justified - a different approach is needed.
Break the incidence and infection cycle - look after your immune system, so that even if you encounter any strain or mutation of this (or any other) virus, your immune system will know what to do to fight it and get rid of it. If you want more information on how to do this, see me!
Stay healthy!
References:
Davies, N.G., Barnard, R.C., Jarvis, C.I., Kucharski, A.J., Munday, J., Pearson, C.A.B., Russell, T.W., Tully, D.C., Abbott, S., Gimma, A., Waites, W., Wong, K.K.M., van Zandvoort, K., Eggo, R.M., Funk, S., Jit, M., Atkins, K.E., & W.J. Edmunds. (2020). Estimated transmissibility and severity of novel SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern 202012/01 in England. medRxiv. DOI: 10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822
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